For many years, patients needing intravenous fluid transfusions have been able to remain ambulatory during such transfusions by using mobile, wheeled IV poles such that the patient, while walking, can roll the IV pole alongside him or her within reach of the length(s) of flexible tubing through which intravenous fluid flows from one or more medication bags to the patient. Early mobile IV poles, however, have suffered from a number of drawbacks.
For example, prior mobile IV poles generally have not had a handle which could easily be adjusted upwardly or downwardly by a patient to accommodate patients of different heights. Prior handles also generally have been oriented horizontally such that patients could not always comfortably or safely grasp the IV pole with sufficient firmness or stability to move the IV pole while walking.
Prior mobile IV poles also typically have had exposed wheels, and many hospital patients have injured themselves by accidentally kicking or tripping over those exposed wheels while walking alongside such prior IV poles.
Several additional problems have arisen because IV poles are commonly used to carry medication pumps and other electrical equipment alongside a patient. Each such medication pump or other piece of equipment includes a power cord, which may be plugged into a conventional wall outlet to supply electricity to the medication pump or other piece of equipment. However, these power cords often become entangled or caught on other objects while the IV pole is being moved or while the patient is moving near the IV pole. This, in turn, has, in some cases, caused patients to trip and fall, or IV poles to topple, possibly resulting in injury and pain to the patient or in hazardous interruption of the patient's transfusion either because the flexible tubing is excessively strained and IV needles are pulled out of the patient, or because the power cords become unplugged from the electrical equipment and/or from the wall outlet.
Further, while newer medication pumps and other electrical equipment may have internal batteries which allow the pumps or equipment to operate for some time while unplugged, the batteries in many such devices do not provide battery-powered operation for very long. Prior IV poles have not included any additional battery or other auxiliary power supply to supplement the internal batteries of medication pumps and other electrical equipment carried by the IV pole.
In addition, conventional IV poles typically have included multiple hooks for mounting multiple medication bags for a patient. A further problem with such IV poles is that the hooks have been oriented in different directions such that the medication bags hung from such IV poles correspondingly are oriented in different directions. As a result, it becomes more difficult for a health care provider to view the medication bag labels which identify the contents of the medication bags, particularly for patients requiring a large number of contemporaneous transfusions. In addition, the lengths of flexible tubing extending from multiple medication bags hanging on an IV pole often have become crossed or entangled with one another, which also has made it more burdensome for heath care providers to distinguish one length of flexible tubing from another when connecting the tubing to the medication bags and to the patient and/or when injecting additional medications into the patient via inlets in the flexible tubing. Further, the hooks on prior IV poles generally have been mounted at a uniform height. However, various intravenous medications administered to a patient must be hung at different heights so that the medications can be delivered at particular flow rates in accordance with the patient's prescriptions. Medication bags often had to be suspended from the hooks of prior IV poles using extension hooks or other apparatus, which is cumbersome for healthcare providers and creates risk of error in the administration of various intravenous medications.
In addition to the foregoing, many patients needing IV transfusions also require urethral or other catheterization, in which a catheter (another length of flexible tubing) is connected between the patient and a catheter bag which, of course, must be maintained in close proximity to the patient. To function properly, the catheter bag must be positioned at a vertical position below the pelvis of the patient. Prior IV poles have not provided adequate means for supporting a catheter bag at a vertical position below the pelvis of the patient to ensure proper operation.